Hurricane
by GuardianSaiyoko
Summary: Live each day like it was your first... The Weather trilogy precedes this.
1. Thunder

Hmmm... I didn't think I'd be doing this, but this idea just got stuck in my head. This is something of a sequel to the 'Rainstorm, Heat Lightning, Flood' trilogy.

To be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's the story of what happens to Yuffie, Vincent, and Cloud after they cut off contact from the rest of AVALANCHE. No, I didn't forget Red, you'll find out what happened to him.

Short summary: Yuffie, Vincent, and Cloud are searching for information on what alterations Hojo may have made to Cloud, Zack, Red, and Vincent. However, Tifa's determination to find them all may prevent them from succeeding.

This may be slightly odd. Parts of it will be mostly humor. Parts of it will be dark. There will probably be no romance, as any of that was rather ruthlessly slaughtered in the preceding 'Weather' trilogy. I don't really have anything planned out so I'm just seeing where the story takes me. Time tends to jump around a bit, since a lot of it is based on things that actually happened to _me_ and have been modified to fit the story. This is purely for fun, and it is largely unedited, since it reads more like real experiences that way.

Also, please keep in mind that I'm really not going in chronological order most of the time.

This is from Yuffie's point of view.

Warning: Yuri and OOC (out-of-character). Don't like, go away.

This fic is dedicated to Cyrus and Lev...who are probably the only ones reading it.

Those of you still here (heyla Cy), enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own FFVII. Square does.

**Thunder**

I stood up after blowing on the wood for a full five minutes. The fire was still refusing to light. It kept going out again almost immediately.

"Vinnie," I called softly. "Vincent, where are you? I need to borrow the fire materia."

A moment later the dark figure is kneeling beside me, a darker patch against the black. He doesn't wear his cape anymore, just his black bodysuit. It's nice to able to see his face. He sighs and produces the materia.

"Yuffie, I do not believe this was intended to function in this manner..."

I ignored him. Fire is fire.

The logs roared into life and I looked up as I heard a wry chuckle. Cloud strode up beside me, dumping a few fresh-caught rabbits- our dinner- onto the ground. He surveyed our camp wearily.

"Yuf, I really don't think that fire materia is supposed to be used that way."

I waved one arm at him as I grabbed the rabbits and started skinning and cleaning them. "Save it, I've already heard it and I've already ignored it." Cloud laughed again and dropped into a crouch beside me, pulling one of the rabbits over to work on it himself. He's making a mess of it and we end up charring both rabbits. All right, so we're lousy cooks, all of us. We're eating and that's enough.

Even if we have lost a lot of weight. Finally, a diet that works: three people who between them cannot catch, clean or cook a meal. Lovely. We should start an ad campaign.

It's silent around the fire for a while after we finish eating. I think Vincent is asleep, to be honest, though it's hard to tell with him. He sleeps with his eyes open about half the time. It's beyond creepy. It was a clear night, so we'd all be sleeping out under the stars instead of fighting with the tent.

After an eternity of staring into flames, so much that the night branded itself on my eyes when I finally look away from the fire, Cloud shifts slightly and sighs. I'm surprised when he rises and envelops me in a warm hug. Cloud doesn't _like_ hugs; that's always been a major issue between him and Tifa.

I hugged him back without really thinking about it, whispering "Thank you."

I'm not sure what I was thanking him for, really. For the hug? Maybe, but there was more to it than that. For listening. For letting me trail him and Vincent through the wilderness. For understanding. Maybe I was thanking him just for existing. Certainly I'm glad he does.

After a minute or so we broke apart and smiled at each other and went to bed.


	2. Lightning

Lightning

"I think we went the wrong way somewhere..."

I have to agree with Cloud there. See, we're standing at the top of Mt. Nibel. With no trail down.

Not one damn trail. Other than the one we took up here, but it won't help us, as it leads deeper into the mountains and we're trying to reach the town. So that's a definite no-go.

I started looking around. The only things up here were rocks and some stray sheet metal, presumably from the abandoned Mako reactor. An idea struck me. My eyes met Cloud's. We grinned at each other and I knew we were thinking the same thing.

A moment later a rather confused Vincent was yanked forward, as Cloud and I each ran up on either side of him and grabbed a hand. We flung ourselves down onto a wide piece of sheet metal and hung suspended in midair for the space of a moment before slamming jarringly into the mountain.

The sheet metal was far from perfect; we huddled together on it to fit, hurtling headfirst through the darkness, Cloud and I whooping gleefully. I help on tightly to the side of the sheet metal, which was bent up slightly to keep our hands from trailing on the ground. At least Cloud and I were each holding a side; Vincent had to rely on us to keep him safe. My hands were getting cut from the sides and I was probably going to need a quick Cure spell when we reached the bottom. I was cold all along my left side, my right side was warm from the heat of Vincent's body. We shot down the mountainside, feeling like we were falling into forever.

Beyond the edges of our improvised sled, there was no light, no sound, no _world_. We were all that existed in our bubble of space.

It seemed like forever before we skidded to a stop at the base of the mountain, sliding halfway down the path to town. Really, it was probably only five minutes or so since we'd jumped, which is still pretty long for a sled ride.

Cloud stood up first, eyes sparkling with mirth, and pulled first Vincent and then me to our feet.

"That was insane," Vincent informed us both flatly, "and idiotic. Had we fallen off that metal, we would have died."

I shrugged. "Jenova couldn't kill us. Hojo couldn't kill us. Sephiroth couldn't kill us. I doubt a scrap of metal is about to manage something that they couldn't."

Vincent shook his head and sighed.

"Besides, it was fun," Cloud added brightly as we started towards Nibelheim.

"It was kinda cool," I mused. "Like nothing and no one existed but us."

"...I suppose...it was enjoyable," Vincent conceded. "Somewhat."

He doesn't trust me and Cloud anymore when we start exchanging grins.


	3. Wind

Wind

I leaned against the bed with a sigh. "Just like a sleepover, huh."

W were inside the ShinRa mansion. No one actually wanted to sleep _on _the bed, and none of us really wanted to be near the door to the basement, so we were all sprawled out along one side of it. All right, so between the three of us we didn't really fit well. I've been travelling with Cloud and Vincent so long that we're used to cramped quarters.

Even if I prefer to sprawl.

"A...sleepover," Cloud muttered, disbelieving. His eyes glowed as he stared at me. It's strange, the way their eyes glow. It startled me at first, especially at night, but now it's kind of comforting.

I tilted my head back and let my eyes fall shut. "Yeah. A sleepover. You know, where you stay up all night and talk about what guys you... like...Oh."

Vincent just sighed.

"Eheh, yeah, so I guess none of us have a whole lotta experience with that..." I muttered sheepishly. Cloud laughed and slung an arm around my shoulder.

"S'ok, Yuf. We can talk about girls, hey?"

I started laughing and shoved him off me. He tumbled to the ground and into Vincent, who sighed again and rolled his eyes. "Heh, yeah, I guess you're right. Who's first?"

Cloud pushed himself up, 'accidentally' poking Vincent in the side, and grinned at me. "Your idea, so you first. So. Talk." Then he winced slightly. "Although, I may hit you if you go on about Tifa too long. I don't think I can take that."

"Hey! What happened to not hitting girls?"

Cloud snorted. "That rule so does not apply to you."

"Dammit..." I muttered. "Uh, okay...I...uh..." I found myself falling silent.

After about five minutes I sensed Vincent and Cloud starting to get annoyed. "Sorry...it's just that...I don't think I'm all that interested in Tifa anymore."

Cloud blinked. "Well, I can't say that I'm not relieved. Why, though? You really cared about her before."

I shrugged. "It's just...It's like there's this chasm between me and Tifa, and she's on one side and I'm on the other. And I can see her side, and there's some good points and some bad points to it, but I can see the whole damn thing from here. And on my side, there's you two, and there's twists and turns and it's impossible to know what'll happen next. Certainly it's rougher and more dangerous than her side, but it's a lot more fun." I shrugged again, feeling slightly stupid. " I can see her side, and I know I used to be over on that side of the chasm, and that I even used to be able to cross back and forth...but now I don't remember how. I can't cross back to her side, and even if I could, I wouldn't want to. It's just...She wants a different life than I do."

We were all silent for a long while after that. Vincent had just opened his mouth to comment, when a soft noise at the door made us all look up sharply.

It was Tifa.


	4. Earth

Earth

I woke up very, very slowly, and cursed at the headache that I was developing. It felt like I had a Tonberry stabbing me between the eyes.

I tried to move and couldn't. Dammit. Someone had tied me up.

_Oh yeah..._ Slavers, in that last town. We'd started fighting them, but Cloud and Vincent were still distracted by what we'd read in Hojo's files, and I was still distracted because they were upset. So I'm not really sure where Vinnie and Cloud were at when the flat of a sword came down on my head.

As a matter of fact...I was still finding Hojo's files distracting... I could still see them with my eyes closed...

_Addition of Jenova Cells _

_With the addition of Jenova cells to the body, esp. one already strengthened by Mako, the body will adjust by balancing blood, Mako and Jenova, resulting in increased strength and stamina and a longer lifespan._ _Strength, as suggested by Specimens V, Z, and C, ranges from a 1.5 increase to a 6.0 increase._ _Stamina is the same, excepting that Specimen Z exhibited a 9.0 increase in stamina. It is impossible to know at the moment what the lifespan increase is, however, based on my own research and results received from Specimen V, it is likely that lifespan spans well out over a thousand years. Carriers of the Jenova cells may even be immortal..._

There had been more after that, but that was the important part. Understandably, neither Cloud nor Vinnie was too happy about finding out they were immortal, or at least incredibly long-lived.

_Well, at least Red'll appreciate the company..._I slit my eyes open and took inventory. I was trussed up pretty good- but then, these guys knew who I was, that I was AVALANCHE, a ninja, and a former princess of Wutai to boot. Now that they'd caught me, they wouldn't be taking any chances.

Though I did have to wonder if they knew I was a _former_ princess and not a current one.

Of course, their buyer would have to know all that too, and if he...or she, for that matter...still wanted their hands on me, I was in a great deal of danger.

We were near Mideel. We had to be- I could see a pool of the Lifestream glowing nearby.

That, combined with the reports dancing through my head, gave me an idea.

I rolled into the Lifestream.


	5. Fire

Fire

I don't know what falling into the Lifestream was like for Cloud, but for me it was both an awesome experience and the most horrible sensation of my life. I was raging fire, I was molten rock, I was wind sighing through trees, I was ocean spray. I was the earth and the air and the sea. I was everything and everywhere at once.

Neither Cloud nor Tifa has ever spoken of the time they spent in the Lifestream. I had no idea what this stunt was going to do to me...a week had nearly killed Cloud, and _he _wasn't- isn't- entirely human. I was just a young, disowned, homeless, penniless ninja who was all too human.

Still, I considered this better than the alternative.

I have no real idea how long I was in the Lifestream. Certainly I wasn't tied up anymore- the ropes had fallen away the moment I sank into the glowing green.

_I wonder if my eyes'll glow too now._ It was that discordant thought that awoke me to the fact that I was no longer in the Lifestream. I sat up dazedly and opened my eyes.

_Whoa._

Cloud and Vincent neglected to mention that glowing eyes mean glowing sight. Everything around me was wrapped in glowing gray. I hadn't even known such a thing as glowing gray _existed._ Well, there seemed to be a pretty good lack of mental damage, even physical damage, for having swum through the Lifestream.

At least...that's what I thought...

"Yuffie?"

I whirled, only now noticing where I was. Lucrecia's cave.

_Of course. We all agreed to meet here if we got lost..._

"Vincent! Cloud!" They're...what are they looking at?

I walked up behind Cloud and peered over his shoulder. I'm too short to see over Vincent.

Actually, I thought I was too short to see over Cloud...

Then I saw what they were staring at so fixedly and choked, making them both whirl around, weapons at the ready.

It was me. My body.

Which I, apparently, was no longer attached to.

"_Yuffie!_" Cloud threw his arms around me...and we both stood still in shock as his arms went _through_ me.

"Uh...hi, guys," I said quietly and awkwardly into the silence. "How...how long have I been gone?"

"A month," Vincent said grimly, rising with my... with my body cradled in his arms. "Four times what drove Cloud mad, if you jumped in the Lifestream the same day we lost you."

"I did," I said unsteadily. "Oh...the slavers..."

"Oh, they're dead," said Cloud so grimly that I decided I didn't want to know the details. Ever.

"How'd you know I was in the Lifestream?" I'd think that would be hard to figure out...

Vincent shrugged. "Knew. Both of us. Red XIII was aware also."

_Hojo_.

"You've still got a pulse, by the way," Vincent added. I followed him and Cloud into the cave as he carried my body in and laid it on the pedestal. The one where Lucrecia's spirit had been.

"The Mako will preserve it." Vincent answered my unspoken question. "In case we find out how to heal...this."

Well, I could see at least one positive side to all of this.

"Looks like you two and Red'll have a bit more company than you'd bargained for."

Finally Cloud smiled. "I guess we will."


	6. Slow

Slow

The river was gushing nearly out of its banks. This was undoubtedly going to be a flood-rain.

I grinned and leapt nimbly to a fallen tree over the river. Cloud laughed, but Vincent reached out a hand as if he were worried that I'd fall.

Yeah right. I'm a ninja. I wasn't about to fall. I threw my head back and started singing into the screaming sky. After the first few lines Cloud clambered up beside me and joined in.

"I've got another confession to make! I'm no fool! Everyone's got their chains to break! Mine was you!" All right, so maybe we didn't quite have the lyrics right. I liked ours better.

I think we were scaring Vinnie, though, as we were now dancing along the log above the rapidly rising water. Finally he sighed and stepped on, walking after us and shaking his head. We kept singing, getting louder as we went.

"Would you rather resist, or be abused? Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of  
you? Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?"

I skipped every time we hit the word 'best.' I noticed Vincent wincing every time Cloud hauled me laughingly back towards the center of the log.

"Are you gone and onto someone new? I needed somewhere to hang my head without your news!  
You gave me something that I didn't have, but had no use! I was too weak to give in Too strong to lose My heart is under arrest again but I break loose!"

Now we were across the river. The land turned to desert almost immediately. We were going to visit Red; Cloud and I started running full tilt the moment our feet touched (relatively) dry ground.

"My head is giving me life or death, but I can't choose! I swear I'll never give in, I refuse! Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you? Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?"

"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel! You trust, you must! Confess! Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you? Oh..."

"Has someone taken your faith? It's real, the pain you feel! The life, the love, you die to heal! The hope that starts, the broken hearts, you trust, you must, confess!"

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you? Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

Red XII saw us coming and came running to greet us. We never came here if we could help it; we were too easy to find here. Now, however, we'd just run straight through the worst storm of the last decade. I doubted Tifa had followed us through that. Red had offered us the use of a series of caves the last time we came to visit and that was where we headed now.

It was still raining in the desert.

"I've got another confession my friend, I'm no fool. I'm getting tired of starting again, somewhere new...Were you born to resist or be abused? I swear I'll never give in...I refuse."

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you? Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?


	7. Ice

Ice

I stood on the edge of the hilltop and wrapped my arms around myself.

"Yuf, it'll be fine." I didn't look at Cloud. "I know you don't want to go back there, but we need to know why anyone would have kidnapped you."

"I could wait here." It took me a minute to realise it was me that had spoken.

"No," Vincent said gruffly. "We are not separating again."

Cloud laid a hand on my shoulder. It fell through. "No, we're definitely not leaving you alone."

"You let me go by myself when..."

"That was different," Cloud cut me off. "That was something you had to do alone, for her to understand." He closed his eyes briefly. "I'm still not sure she understands."

Red wool swung into place around me. Startled, I looked up at Vincent. He reached over and drew the clasp into place, hiding all but my eyes from view.

I wasn't sure anyone would recognize my eyes now that they were glowing.

'Thanks..." I trailed off. Vincent had started down the hill. He stopped and turned back to us.

I pulled the cape closer together in front and Cloud and I followed him into Wutai.

I got some odd looks, but thankfully no one seemed to recognize me. "Hey, guys," I said quietly, "How about I just wait in my old house while you go talk to Godo."

Cloud looked ahead of us and winced. "I'd say yeah, Yuffie, except..." He trailed off and pointed.

My home was gone.

I stared in stunned disbelief. My beautiful house was gone, burned to the ground. After a minute I drew in a shaky breath and turned Mako-bright eyes back to my companions. "Alright, let's...let's just go." I tucked my arms under the cape, all my body but my now-unrecognizable eyes hidden from view. I threw a glance back at what remained of my house. "Although, I'm starting to think I'd have been safer outside."

Wutai had been, to put it mildly, displeased when it came out that the Princess did not want a Prince. Not now, not ever.

Girls with with girls and guys with guys was a big no-no in Wutai. If it hadn't always been that way, it had been for a long, long time.

Kinda made me wonder where in the hell Vinnie was from. Evidently not Wutai, though he certainly looked it.

I bowed my head to hide my glowing eyes and walked into the Pagoda, Vincent on one side and Cloud on the other.


	8. Steal!

"I love carnivals."

Vincent stared at me, stared at my setup, placed his claw over his eyes and sighed. "Yuffie, what exactly is it that made you think this was a good idea."

I grinned and showed him my bulging pockets. "The fact that it worked."

"But how would the fact that it works now inspire you to...You know what, never mind. I don't believe I wish to know the answer to my question."

Cloud chose that moment to return from the food stall. "Um...Vinnie, Yuf?"

I grabbed him and yanked him behind the stall with us. "Yaa! Um, Yuffie, why exactly are we...hey! Give that back!"

I ignored Cloud and finished off his nachos. He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

"In all fairness, you probably should have expected that," Vincent informed him.

"Yeah. I should have. Now will one of you please explain why we are hiding behind a large metal box with a hole sliced in the lid and a sign saying 'How gullible are you? To find out, insert 200 gil' taped to the front?"

I opened the back of the box, extracted roughly two million gil, closed it again and grinned at him. "People are, in fact, _incredibly _gullible. We also have seven new gold chocobos, by the way. Thay should sell for about three and a half million gil each."

Cloud looked at Vincent.

"Valet parking."

Cloud nodded. "Ah."

"Do you want to be the one to point out that we live in a cave and therefore need no money, and that besides that fact Yuffie is no longer connected to her body and has absolutely no need for material wealth, or shall I."

"I don't believe it's the material wealth that she cares about. I'm pretty sure she just likes stealing."

"...Considering she is now holding both our wallets as well as my Outsider and your Ragnarok, despite the fact that she has no idea how to use either and we live with her...I would say you you are correct. She just enjoys stealing."


	9. Ice2

Ice2

I slumped against the cave wall and drew Vincent's cape up over me, hiding my face. I heard footsteps approach me twice- first the sound of scuffed leather on the cave floor, and then bronze ringing- but twice they stopped and then faded away again.

I used to hide under my blanket when I was younger, not to stay hidden from monsters, but to stay hidden from...well, I'm not entirely sure what. Point was, it always made me feel safe. I'd continued sleeping under my blanket right up until I met Cloud.

After facing Sephiroth, a blanket just didn't seem like adequate protection.

But now I clutched Vinnie's cape tight and burrowed under it. He didn't seem to mind particularly. I could hear him and Cloud speaking softly and starting a fire, comforting background noises. Familiar noises.

Familiar noises used to mean the cats in the shack outside and the crackle of fire from Da Chao. Then I joined AVALANCHE and for a short time that seemed like years familiar noises meant Barret's snoring, embers snapping from a dying campfire, Red XIII's low rumble, Cait's chatter, Tifa's laugh and for a short time, Aeris' calm voice.

But Aeris' voice would never speak again, I never heard Tifa laugh without malice, and I would never again be able to return to Wutai.

Godo knew who had hired the slavers, all right.

He had.

At Tifa's suggestion.

My hand slipped through the soft fabric of the cape. I sighed and concentrated, solidifying again.

When we had finally gotten to see Godo- which had involved convincing the rest of the Pagoda to let us through- Tifa had been beside him, smirking. Godo wanted to clear the name of Wutai's royal line of my stain.

Tifa just wanted another shot at Cloud.

Obviously, that hadn't been the way to go about it. Cloud threw something at her- I found out later it was a ring belonging to the late leader of the slave traders. With the finger still attached.

He snarled at her a little and we left. She tried to keep up with us, but Tifa has no Mako in her system. There was no way she could match our speeds, even if she had a Gold Chocobo.

I happen to know for a fact her last Chocobo bit her and sped off. Ipsen and Chiki are great friends now; they live in the mountains by Lucrecia's cave.

Cloud was back. This time he sat down beside me. I was glad; I wanted to talk to him. I desperately wanted someone to tell me that I was a good person, that I wasn't evil, that I didn't deserve to have my home burnt down or to be sold into slavery.

I'd just been scarred down to my soul, and the only two people in the world I found myself able to trust anymore were in the room with me.

After a bit Vincent sat down on my other side. Neither one of them spoke, but Cloud slung an arm around my shoulders and Vinnie shifted to try and place his human hand awkwardly on my shoulder. I shook my head wordlessly and grabbed his claw.

"Thanks..."


	10. Stop

Stop

Vincent peered cautiously around a corner. I grinned and swept past him, shuriken out and ready, the ferocious little cub at my side.

"Didja really explore all of these caves before, Auntie Yuffie?" she asked, bounding forward and cocking her head back to catch a response. Cloud laughed and moved past me to drop a hand to her mane. She purred.

"Yeah, Aeris. Your father came too; we all spent two years exploring these caves. This network runs for miles. Your mother used to live here; this is where your parents met."

Aeris' tail flicked. "And I betcha they fought lotsa battles together!" I smiled at the thought of how different she was than her namesake. Aeris had been a healer; Red's youngest daughter was a warrior through and through. She took after her father, mostly, though her mother Avani was a warrior as well.

"Yes," Cloud said quietly, "we all fought lots of battles together." He stared blankly off for a minute, and I was reminded of why we were here. Aeris was nearly twenty now. Her sister Kasumi was forty-eight, the same age as her father when we had first joined together, and acted very much like him. I think it was Vincent she idolized, though. We had shown this to Kasumi when she was twenty-six, but Aeris was maturing faster.

"Auntie Yuffie!" Aeris tended to idolize, well, me.

This was a great deal more irritating than I had expected, to Cloud and Vincent's endless amusement.

"We're almost there, Aeris..."

I slipped sideways through a nearly-hidden crack in the stone, grinning widely at Aeris' astonished gasp. The little cub was adorable, but she was very easily amused.

Then again, I'm pretty easily amused myself.

Vincent followed me, Aeris trotting by his side and swiveling her head about curiously, and Cloud filed in last. He sat down on one of the raised stone platforms against the wall of the room and Vincent and I sat down on either side of him.

We were in a vast circular room, the domed ceiling far above us. The entrance crack was all but invisible from inside the room. Lining the walls were memorials. Aeris prowled around the outside of the room, reading the inscriptions.

"Cait Sith. Cid Highwind. Aeris..." She paused. "Aeris Gainsborough... Barret Wallace." She glanced over where the three of us sat, silent, and read the inscriptions above Cloud and Vincent's platforms and on the monument behind me. "Vincent Valentine, Cloud Strife, Yuffie Kisaragi..." The cub trailed off as she moved to the center of the room and read the final inscription, scorched into the floor hundreds of years ago. "AVALANCHE. In death as in life, as one with the Planet." Aeris sank onto her haunches in the center of the room, her tail flicking daintily. The firetip threw eerie shadows onto the walls.

"Uncle Cloud, where are we?" she asked quietly, her bright voice unusually somber.

"This is AVALANCHE's tomb," Vincent said quietly. "Your father wanted us to show you this when he felt you were old enough, and to tell you a story."

Aeris swiveled her head to look at Vincent. "But Uncle Vincent, you tell me stories all the time."

"This one's different," said Cloud, speaking for the first time since entering the tomb. He stared blankly across the room, at Aeris' monument. "This isn't something we could tell a child, Aeris. You had to be older to hear this one."

"It's worse than the story about Sephiroth, and Meteor, and AVALANCHE?" the cub asked, wide-eyed and crouching.

"In a way. This was after all of that. This was..." Cloud paused a minute. "This is about the ninth member of AVALANCHE."

Aeris stared at him. "Daddy only talked about eight members. He's never mentioned anyone else."

"He never told you...about Tifa Lockheart."


	11. Ice3

Ice3

I grinned at Cloud. "Gamuku!"

Cloud groaned as he crossed out another line of x's. "I should never have taught you this game."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed the pile of gil. "No, you should never have allowed me to _bet_ on this game. You are a very poor man, Cloud Strife."

Vincent sighed. "For the last time, Yuffie, we have shared funds. Which we _don't need_, because we live in a _cave_."

I shrugged. "Fine. Wanna play some Katamari?" I dove across the cave to the TV.

"Yuf, I still really, really want to know how you got electricity in a hidden cave. Surrounded by mountains. Accessible only through a lake."

"And Gold Chocobos," I protested, selecting _make the moon_.

Cloud threw his hands in the air. "We own the only Gold Chocobos there are!"

"Heyla, I don't think Chiki and Ipsen consider us owners. And I don't think Kiora, Kaida, or Tokala even know what owners are!"

"Kiora, Kaida and Tokala?" Cloud repeated, confused.

"The hatchlings," Vincent replied wearily.

"The...hatchlings...? But...Ipsen and Chiki...they're siblings!"

"Oh yeah," I mused, "Cid bred the chocobos...You realize, Cloud, that getting a Gold Chocobo in the first place requires an insane amount of inbreeding?" I laughed at Cloud's expression.

My laughter was cut short when Tifa appeared in the cave's entrance. She looked absolutely maniacal. Before any of us could react, she'd marched right up to the podium, drew back her arm, and punched.

I screamed. I felt like I was being broken in half. Tifa dragged my body off the Mako fountain and just kept hitting it single-mindedly, completely ignoring everything else.

I fell as my vision started to blacken. Vincent caught me, or tried to. I was flickering rapidly from being fully materialized to semitransparent to fully transparent and then cycling back through. Vincent lowered me to the ground cautiously and looked up to see Cloud charge Tifa, Ultima Weapon swinging down. It cleaved the ground between Tifa and my body, leaving a deep gash in the earth. She sprang away, fists still clenched, chest heaving in fury and her eyes gleaming madly.

I knew none of this, clawing for life on the floor of the cave. Or half-life. Or whatever the hell it was I had. I found out later.

"What are you doing!" Cloud screamed at Tifa.

"If she's dead...you'll come back to me..." And Tifa lunged for my body again, launching into Final Heaven.

And all the attacks which precede Final Heaven.

My vision went completely back, then went white.

"Yuffie!"

"Who...?"

"Yuffie!"

"Me...I'm here. I'm right here."

"Yuffie!"

I opened my eyes and immediately shut them again. Wherever I was, it was brilliantly, blindingly white. Then my name was called again.

"Yuffie, you have to go back! They need you!" My eyes flew open and I stared.

"Aeris!"

The flower girl leaned over me, worry etched on her pretty face. "Yuf, you can't stay here! Cloud and Vinnie need you!"

"Can you send me back?" I was on my knees. I braced my hand on the daunting emptiness and stood up. Aeris nodded briskly.

"Yes, but you have to go _now_!"

We stared at each other a moment, then Aeris rushed forward and through her arms around me. Considering we were both dead, it was a surprisingly substantial hug. We sprang apart. "There's an opening for you, go!"

I had the oddest sensation, like I was being pushed and pulled at the same time. "Aeris, we miss you!" I called. Laughter drifted back.

"I'll come back to you! Don't worry, the Lifestream always continues!"

And then reality slammed back into me jarringly, and I gasped at how much it hurt. Something heavy clattered to the ground near me and suddenly Cloud was holding me tightly, Vincent kneeling beside me with his hands on my shoulders and his crimson eyes wide in surprise.

"Yuffie, you're alive!"

I groaned and stretched, wincing. "And I felt healthier dead..." I froze. "Where's Tifa?"

Cloud dropped his eyes and wouldn't meet my gaze. Vincent looked silently past me, and I turned my head to see.

Tifa, dead. Both hands clutched Ultima Weapon, driven through her chest.

I tried to speak and couldn't. I tried again.

"Cloud, you..."

Vincent shook his head. "No. We attempted to retrieve your body from her, and Tifa ran up the blade trying to continue her attack." The light n his eyes dimmed, and it was only then that I realised my sight still glowed with Mako.

I glanced down and flexed my fingers. My right hand was broken, but it was healing already. "Huh. I guess I'll still be around a while, huh?"

Cloud looked puzzled. I held up my healing hand. "Gonna live forever, huh guys?" I smiled weakly and slipped out of their combined grasp to stand up carefully. "That means...we can do anything. We'll never run out of time."

Finally, finally Cloud smiled. Barely, and it was a sad smile, but he smiled all the same. "Guess so." Then he looked at Tifa's body and his eyes dimmed again. He looked so sad.

Aeris' words to me rang in my head.

"'I'll come back to you...!"


	12. Blizzard

Blizzard

It's strange how close people become in the heat of battle.

I mean, me and Cloud and Vinnie had been close after the whole Sephiroth deal, and gotten even closer after striking out on our own and fighting together even more often. What was really getting to me now, though, wasn't the way I was so used to fighting and standing with Vincent and Cloud.

It was the redhead fighting beside me, his companions helping Cloud break a path through town.

Godo and Tifa weren't real eager for us to leave. As far as they were both concerned, I'd waltzed right into their hands, and this was a perfect opportunity to kill me. 'Stand and fight' was not the best option, as the entire town appeared to be out for my blood, and I wasn't interested in massacring the inhabitants of my former home. So we ran. We plowed into Turtle's Paradise and locked the door behind us to buy some time to think out a plan. We were good enough to take on the town, but one, we didn't want to hurt innocents, and two, Tifa and Godo were also good fighters.

As it turned out, there was a barfight going on. Vincent's cape had flown back by now, leaving my face exposed, and as soon as the townsfolk spotted me there was debris and fists flying our way. Cloud dove behind the nearest upturned table, yanking me down with him. Vincent followed us after a moment, gun out and at the ready. A drunk tried to hit me on the head with a bottle. I ducked and Vinnie shot the bottle out of his hand.

I didn't hear Vincent's strained command. I was staring at Reno, who grinned and lifted his glass to his temples in mock salute. "Hey."

A sword split the table we were all hiding behind. "Shit!" I scrambled back, whirling a shuriken at one of the charging men. It caught at his belt and pinned him to the wall. Cloud sprang to his feet to slam the flat of his blade on the man's head, knocking him unconscious. Elena popped up from behind another table. "Good shot," she acknowledged, before Rude pulled her back down just in time to avoid a whizzing bullet.

I leapt behind the bar and found myself crouched next to Reno again. He was popping up at intervals to take out the patrons closest to the bar with his nightstick.

"So," he stated cheerfully, "I know they're not overly fond of Turks here, but why is it they're after you?"

I hurled a shuriken over the bar and was rewarded with a shriek. I caught it on the rebound. Vincent swept by, the edge of his shirt torn, and shot me a dark look. I shrugged apologetically; it's hard to aim without looking.

"I'm gay," I answered Reno shortly, not wanting to waste time. "Not a good thing to be in these parts."

Reno considered that, then nodded. "Yeah, I can see how that might be a problem in Wutai. Especially for their princess."

I snorted. "I haven't been a princess for years now. We came here to investigate something."

The redhead raised an eyebrow. "And what would that be?"

"Someone tried to have me kidnapped. Turned out it was Tifa and Godo," I slammed a shuriken into a hand reaching over the bar. It withdrew with a yelp.

Reno hissed, tapping his nightstick against the floor. "Your father and your best friend. Wow, that sucks."

"Tell me about it," I griped. "Man, I knew it was a bad idea to return here, but I didn't know everyone would try to kill me!"

"Same here," Reno said dryly. "Though I admit, we should have anticipated."

"Ditto." I stood up. "The bar's clear. Let's go."

Vincent and Cloud were standing with their backs to the wall. Elena and Rude, across the bar but also backed against a wall, were eyeing the door.

"Well," I said brightly, feeling battle-fury invading my senses, "shall we make a break for it?"

All eyes turned to me. I shrugged, feeling reckless and invincible now that we'd come unscratched out of the first half of the battle. "To Da Chao, I think. We'll pull back to the holy mountain." I felt a grin tugging at my face. "Then I have a bit of a Christmas gift for the town."

"But it isn't-" Cloud started, then fell silent with a frown. After a moment, he said thoughtfully, "Huh. You're right, it is Christmas."

Reno shook his head and shoved past me. "Friggin' Holy, where have you three been living? In a cave?" Cloud and I both grinned and he sighed. "Figures."

I incanted something under my breath and Rude glanced at me inquisitively as red power-circles flared and faded.

"Haste-all. Gonna be one hell of a fight," I grinned. We all stood against the far wall as Vincent slowly lowered his arm and took aim at the door.

"Get ready to run," Elena warned unnecessarily.

A shot blew the door of its hinges. Cloud and Reno were the first out, sword and nightstick flashing with dizzying speed. Reno swept his nightstick at a man's knees. The man leapt to avoid it and brained himself on the flat on Cloud's sword, who continued the bright arc to gash another man's sword arm and take out a woman's knee.

Me and Vinnie charged next, my shuriken clearing a wide path in front of Cloud and Reno, who both shot back grins. Vincent shot carefully at the bridges, sending the townspeople packed onto them into the water. At the same instant water shot up from all sides as everyone fell into the shallow streams. While they were screaming in confusion, Elena and Rude stormed past us to overtake Cloud and Reno in the first wave, spreading a ring of bullets around us. Several people who had been climbing back up out of the water screamed and fell back in, clutching injured legs and arms. Rotating in a circle, spreading bullets and shuriken whirling around us, the six of us beat a path to the mountain. Once we reached the foothills, less and less of the townsfolk seemed willing to follow us. Reno and Cloud took point, clearing the monsters from our path. Elena, Vincent and I switched off to hold the narrow path behind us, sending crippling bullets and shuriken.

In no time at all our charge had carried us to the top of a mountain. I signaled to Vincent and he threw me a glowing red materia. Light sparked and trailed from it as it tumbled towards me and I snatched it from the air in front of Reno's stunned face. Continuing the motion, I swept my arm up and called out a name, lost in the roaring of the angry town. In an explosion of light and a shattering roar the Dragon God swept down from the mountain to circle the town and perch on the Pagoda. Leviathan roared again and then Vincent leapt from beside me. Half-transformed, he dove at the town with Chaos' wings.

"Chiki, Ipsen, Kiora, Kaida, Tokala!" I screamed to the wind. There was a thunder of 'warks' and five Golden Chocobos swooped out of the sky.

"Mount up!" I yelled over the wind. The sky was swirling into what looked like it was going to be the storm of the century. Thunder roared and Leviathan roared back, causing the clouds to split and spill the rain down over Wutai.

"I didn't know your Chobos could fly!" Elena yelled as we each grabbed and held on.

"Neither did we!" I called back, laughing, as the Chocobos spread their wings and dove down the side of the mountain in perfect synchronization. At the last moment we pulled up before hitting the ground and skimmed over the ground in Vincent's wake, staying low to the ground to avoid being thrown by the raging wind. Chaos in the lead, we swept under Leviathan and into the freedom of the fields beyond Wutai. Neither Chaos nor the Chocobos seemed willing to stop, so we found oursleves racing the storm across the ocean. I could hear Reno laughing wildly from Ipsen beside me.

I have no idea how long it was before we alighted on the edge of our lake in front of the cave. Time had been impossible and unnecessary to measure from the time our mad charge began. Vincnet settled before the cave last and transformed back to normal, and his face was practically _glowing_. It was a bizarre expression to see on Vincent.

He looked at my expression, smiled and said calmly, "I have control now."

I found myself laughing from the combination of adrenalin and joy. "That's _awesome_! Hey, Cloud, Vincent can control Chaos!"

Cloud grinned. "Cool."

Elena was looking around with interest. "So this is where you live."

"In a cave," Reno rolled his eyes. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."

"Are you kidding?" I scoffed. "We were sleeping in tents or outside when we were chasing Sephiroth all over the planet. A cave is a real step up."

Elena came over to me and shook my hand with a smile. "Pleasure fighting with you. Friends?"

"So long as you never try to kill me again." Elena laughed and promised not to harm any AVALANCHE members.

"Except Tifa," I added, renewing the laughter. "You can do what I like to her. So, you staying for a visit, or do you have someplace to be getting back to?"

Rude shook his head with real regret. "Tseng."

"I thought Tseng was dead, "Cloud commented.

Elena grinned triumphantly. "Hurt, but by no means dead."

"The Chocobos will take you home," I said, gesturing at them. "Feel free to visit whenever you like."

"Oh, we will," Reno smirked. He still hadn't lost the wild edge to his voice he'd picked up during the fight.

We all waved the Turks off and headed back into the cave, where everyone relaxed.

"Merry Christmas, you guys," I said wryly and was rewarded with quiet laughs as I drifted off to sleep.


	13. Haste

Haste

Vincent leveled his gun at me. I grinned and hurled my shuriken, taking advantage of my distraction to leap nimbly to the barrel of the shotgun and balance there. Vincent growls lightly and sweeps his claw at me from the side. I sprang away with a laugh, throwing up my arm to catch my shuriken and twisting out of the path of a shot.

I signal to Cloud and he joins the fray, Buster Sword swinging down to hit the shotgun with jarring force. I ducked beneath both weapons to come up behind Cloud as he slides his sword down the barrel of the gun.

I stood with my shuriken at Cloud's neck, Vincent's gun aimed at my heart, Cloud's sword resting lightly against Vincent's chest. Reno clapped.

"Man, I love our guys training sessions." He stepped forward and shook his head. "Impressive."

I laughed as we relaxed our fighting stances. "Reno," I greeted warmly. "What brings you back?"

Reno's face changed from laughingly relaxed to deadly serious in a matter of moments. "We have a problem."

"Where?" Vincent asked.

"...Wutai."

I snorted. "And not one of us can go there. Why are you here, Reno? Really."

The redhead relaxed again. "Uh...bit of a vacation, really. 'Lena's been in a bad mood for a bit."

At the questioning looks he received, he admitted, "She's, uh, pregnant. Tseng's. Actually, Tseng asked that the rest of us make ourselves scarce for a bit."

"And you came here," Cloud stated. He raised an eyebrow. "Why here? And where is Rude?"

"Rude's staying with his sister in Nibelheim. I haven't got anywhere else to stay."

"Well," I said wryly, "we can certainly understand that. Come to join the homeless cave-dwellers, have you, Reno?"

"Only until the baby comes!" he defended himself, before mumbling, "And possibly through the terrible twos."

"What was that?" I asked him.

"So, you three train terribly hard, huh?" he replied brightly.

Vincent let off a hail of bullets towards me. They passed through my suddenly insubstantial form towards Cloud, who deflected every single one of them back at Vincent with the flat of his blade. Vincent's wings snapped out and he wrapped them around himself, all the bullets clattering harmlessly off them. Reno stared.

"_That_ was training hard," I told him smugly. "Before, that was just a warm-up."

Reno actually winced slightly. "Suddenly, I have the impression I should have gone with Rude..."

"Why didn't you?" I asked, waving him into the cave after us. He did a double take at the reasonably nice wooden furniture and the working TV set. "We have video games, too," I informed him cheerfully. He gaped.

'How did you-"

Cloud shook his head. "Don't ask. It won't make sense."

Reno seemed to take his word for it. "Can't stay with Rude's sister, she refuses to let me anywhere near her children. I can't imagine why she wouldn't allow a perfect specimen of manliness to stay with her, when she has no problem putting up Rude."

That earned him three identical sounds of disbelief.

"Rude is polite," Vincent informed him.

"And quiet," Cloud added.

"And not hitting on every straight woman in a twelve-mile radius," I concluded.

Reno scoffed and turned away. "So where're the beds?"

"Beds...?" Cloud echoed.

-------------------------------------

Later that night, I was perched on a shelf of one of our surrounding mountains. I stared across the lake. Moonlight hit the water, reflecting and mirroring the sky to give the illusion of endless night. I wondered if I could leap into the lake and fall from the heavens to try again. I reached out with one hand, clenching and unclenching it, watching as it turned form solid to translucent and back again.

Another hand closed around mine and I looked up into Reno's face, not smiling as it usually was but dark and serious instead. He released my hand and sat down next to me, bringing his kness up to his chest.

"Mind if I smoke?"

"I don't care if you burn." I smiled sadly to myself. The words tumbled, hollow, to the lake below. Reno lit up his cigarette.

"The guys showed me your body, you know."

I winced and held out my hand again. This time it went completely transparent. "They did, huh."

"Yeah." He took a long drag on his cigarette. "I wondered why you three never seemed to split up anymore."

I let my hand drop. "Safety in small numbers."

We stayed like that a long time, watching the night sky and the occasional shooting star.

They say when a star falls, a warrior has taken its place...


	14. Bolt

Bolt

I stood under the crying sky, tilted my face up and grinned. A low chuckle sounded from behind me. Arms started to slide around me and then Reno 'oofed' as he received an elbow to his gut.

"Meanie," he muttered. I just laughed at him.

"That's what you get for trying to sneak up on a ninja."

Cloud chose to join us then, picking his way gingerly along the slippery rocks. "Hey ninja, hey flamer."

Reno scowled. "Are you insinuating something, Spike?"

"Nah, just commenting on your hair."

"Good."

"Although," Cloud continued a minute later, "you do spend an awful lot of time alone with Rude..." he ended teasingly. Reno growled and mock-swung at him.

Unfortunately, Vincent had ducked out of the waterfall at _just_ that moment and Reno's fist caught him across the side. Vincent hissed and slid sideways, and probably would have been fine except that the stones were slick from rain. He lost his balance and vanished neatly under the water of the lake.

"Vincent!"

"Vinnie!"

I dove into the lake after him, just catching Cloud's yell to Reno over the rain before the blond swordsman joined me in the lake.

"Vincent can't swim!"

I kicked frantically towards a flash of gold. Vincent's claw was dragging him towards the bottom of the lake. I reached him, but it took me long enough that he'd fallen unconscious from lack of air. I grabbed his claw and tugged it loose. Suddenly Cloud was beside me, grasping Vincent's other arm and helping me to pull him up.

Between the weight of the water and his clothes and claw, though, the two of us together were still struggling. A flash of red dove past me and Reno helped us propel Vincent to the surface. The three of us together dragged him back into the cave, where Cloud got a fire going.

We were all shivering badly. I stood up. "Gonna go get some dry clothing for everyone," I said in response to Cloud's glance. Reno was still staring at Vincent.

I came back a few minutes later, fully changed, with an armful of dry clothing. Which I promptly dropped on the floor.

"Vincent!"

His eyes were open, but he was pretty clearly not seeing anything. He was thrashing wildly as Cloud and Reno tried to get his soaked clothing off. Cursing, Reno muttered a Stop spell.

At first it didn't work, then Cloud succeeded in tugging off Vincent's Ribbon, if not his shirt. Then the Stop spell took hold and Vinnie went rigid, his eyes still open and unseeing. "Hojo..." he muttered, and I shivered more than I had when I was soaked to the bone.

I turned away as Cloud managed to get him into dry clothing and Reno built up the fire. When I turned back, Reno was gone.


	15. Bolt2

I was so tired I couldn't sleep. Ever had that happen? All I'd wanted was to collapse and sleep like the dead, but I'd kept putting it off because I always had just one more thing to do. Now I couldn't sleep. Vincent had been unconscious or close to it for almost four days.

Cloud was slumped over next to Vincent, asleep from exhaustion. Vinnie was still delirious; every time Stop wore off Cloud had had to pin him while I recast it. We'd managed to get him into dry clothes and had been keeping the fire stoked as well as we could, but nothing seemed to help.

I caught myself staring blankly at the fire-shadows on he cave wall. Reno hadn't returned. I wondered if he'd run in fear or for some other reason. I was worried about Vinnie.

Bolt2

He wasn't going to die, obviously. But going mad was another matter entirely.

I suppose I'd always thought if any of us went nuts, it would be Cloud first. It wouldn't be the first time.

I wiped my hand across my eyes. It wasn't fair, I thought bitterly, sounding like the bratty child I had been years ago. It felt like centuries ago. For the first time, it struck me that someday it _would _be 'centuries ago', and yet I'd look like that child still if Vincent's aging was anything to go by. But it _wasn't_ fair, dammit. He'd been healing. So many years later and he'd been healing, he'd been letting us, me and Cloud and Red and even Reno, he'd let us get close to, accepted finally that we _did _ want his companionship, we did want to be friends. That he wasn't a monster, not to us, not ever.

I rummaged around in our packs, grabbed a Turbo Ether, swallowed it. It occurred to me that we didn't have many of them left. It had been a long time since we'd gone out just to train. Against monsters, I mean.

I heard a noise, I was never sure exactly what it was I thought I'd heard, and I looked up thinking it was Cloud. My comment to him died on my lips.

Lucrecia was sitting next to Vincent.

I have absolutely no idea how long I stared at her, sitting next to him looking every bit as real as if she was alive still, her hand running gently through his air. Finally, when I drew in a sharp breath and was about to speak, she looked at me and smiled sadly. And vanished.

"Yuffie...take care of him."

I continued staring blankly for a few minutes. Blinked a couple of times.

...Well, that's _two_ dead people who have told me to stick with these two.

"Yuffie?'

I toppled backwards. "Gah! Dammit Reno!"

Reno smirked at me, but the usual arrogance wasn't behind it. He handed me something. I stared at the orb.

"Underwater materia."

"...Ah."

"Though you might want it."

"...Thanks." Tifa had had it, originally. I'd had no idea what happened to her materia after her death. I'd have to ask Reno sometime where he'd gotten it.

I picked up Vincent's Death Penalty and searched for a materia I could swap out. I swapped Underwater for Manipulate, since I kind of doubted Vincent was using it too often.

Reno sat down next to me. "How long has Cloud been asleep?"

I sighed and leaned against him. The fact that he didn't shove me off let me know that he was worried, too. "A couple of hours. The spell's been holding a surprisingly long time."

"What do we do?"

"I don't know," I replied, staring at Vincent. I was doing a lot of staring tonight.

His eyes had closed at some point, thankfully, but he was unnaturally still from the Stop spells. Vincent doesn't exactly fidget, but he's never perfectly rigid. I let my eyes fall half shut and laid my hand gently on Vincent's forehead, where Lucrecia's hand had rested only minutes before.

Light sparked from my hand.

"Wha!" I pulled back, frowned, and leaned forward again. Light sparked again, familiar green light.

"What materia are you trying?" Reno asked wearily. Wordlessly I pointed behind him, where I had set my weapons and armor on the floor after swapping Vincent's materia. He blinked, then leaned forward intently. "You're...doing that without materia?"

I made my hand spark again. "Yeah!"

Reno went still. "So that's...That means that's real magic."

"I guess..." I leaned over and shook Cloud. "Hey! Wake up!

He came awake in an instant the way all warriors learn to do. "What?"

"Look!" I made the light jump from my hand to Vincent. It lit his still face in an eerie green glow for an instant, then faded. "I think you should be able to do it, too, Cloud. I think it's cuz of the Lifestream."

"It's the mako," Reno said quietly. Cloud and I both turned to stare at him. He shrugged uncomfortably. "After Wutai... I looked for your guys' files. Yuf, you don't have one, but I read Cloud and Vincent's."

I felt slightly violated, like I'd caught Reno reading my diary. From the look on Cloud's face, he felt the same way.

"Look, guys, I'm sorry, but that isn't important right now. What's important is that you can do magic without materia- you can even tweak the spells. Use Esuna, concentrate on the results you want! If it works..." Reno calmed down, trailed off. He turned to Vincent and just looked at him silently for a minute. I could see his eyes tracing over the scars that lined Vincent's chest. Some of them were from the battle for the Planet, one notable one was from training when Cloud and I had missed a parry, but the rest...Well, the rest of them were from Hojo.

And there were a lot of them.

"If it works, it's worth it," Cloud finished for him. He knelt on Vincent's other side, taking his human arm while I grabbed his claw. His eyes met mine. "Ready?"

I nodded. "Much as I'm gonna be."

We both sent a flow into Vincent at the same time, and my light met Cloud's light. They fused, spread, sank into Vincent. Cloud and I fell backwards, suddenly wiped of energy. I still held Vincent's claw, but I nearly dropped it when he moved.

"What...?"

That was all he got out before being hugged and babbled at in relief. I'd have been embarrassed if Cloud hadn't been babbling too. I could even hear Reno's relieved laughter from somewhere behind me before he dropped to his knees beside me, smiling at Vinnie. Then he took my hand with wonder, gazing at it.

"Hojo was wrong," he murmured. "It wasn't the Jenova cells...it's the mako..."

Reno looked up at me with a grin, and my world came screeching to a halt.

His eyes were glowing.


	16. Bolt3

Bolt3

Reno didn't know.

That is to say, he knew about the mako and he'd figured out that it was mako and not Jenova that caused lifespan abnormalities and 'true' magic. He didn't know that he'd been showered with mako.

And we weren't sure how to tell him.

It took Vincent another day or so to fully recover. Reno started to explain to me that, theoretically, since mako changes a body and its abilities, I should have all new limit breaks. The way Cloud had become a sword guru, or Vincent a shapeshifter.

I've seen Vincent transform a lot more times than Reno has, though, and I was a little scared to try his theory out. I did _not_ relish the idea of giving over control of my body.

But, well, I'm curious. So on the third day after Vincent was up and moving again, I tried it out. I concentrated on the energy inside me. To my surprise, it _did_ feel different, like there was a wellspring of energy inside me just waiting for the lock to be sprung so it could rush up. So I opened myself to it.

_Pain!_

"Yuffie?"

I knelt on the floor, gasping, feeling my bones slide out of place, shortening in some places, elongating in others. My skin itched, then burned, and suddenly I had four legs.

Minutes after, I was a wolf.

I turned to Reno, bared my fangs, and then wagged my tail to show him I was in control. I ran around the cave a bit, loving my sense of smell, before transforming back. Just as painful a transformation, by the way.

Eventually, over the course of a few months, we found my other forms. Well, two of them- I supposed I needed something to teach me my final form, the way I'd needed to learn All Creation. For now, I could become the wolf, a panther, and...and this was the biggest surprise I'd had in a while, even more than Reno telling me I could shapeshift...I could turn into one of Nanaki's kind.

Now _that_ was cool.

But it was months later, and the mako glow still hadn't faded from Reno's eyes. And he seemed blissfully unaware of it.

We had to tell him.


	17. StopAll

Stop-All

Eventually, the others started dying.

We knew it was going to happen, but somehow it always seemed so far removed. They were going to die _someday_. Not now.

Not now.

But this was Cid's funeral, and he was the last.

I stood before the grave, long after the family had gone home, Cloud and Vincent on either side of me, and let one last cigarette drop onto the grave.

"Rest in peace, old man," I said quietly.

I turned and walked away. Vincent left in another direction, Cloud in yet another. Red XIII was somewhere far away; I hadn't seen him in years. We were the very last of AVALANCHE.

I didn't realize it, but we would not even see each other for a long time.

I don't know where Cloud and Vinnie went during those years. I've never asked and they've never offered. They don't know where I went. I slipped easily into one of my alternate forms, and I suspect Vincent did the same. Cloud...probably went to the City of the Ancients.

I became a wolf. I stayed a wolf for years that I never could quite add up. I lived near Bone Village for a while and became one family's protector. The daughter there saw me as a pet and savior at once and no doubt never really believed I'd leave one day, but her mother knew better. Ellen Highwind knew I was a creature of the wild and would never stay. She'd never know I had been her grandfather's companion, but she was grateful for the time I spent with her family.

I spent some time with Red as well, though my firecat form was male and he never knew it was me. I didn't really care to deceive him, but it seemed too much effort to explain. He mentioned seeing Chaos in the mountains around Nibel, so I left and made my way there. It was on that way that I found my last limit break, Tiamat. A dragon.

I don't know how much time passed before I found myself at the entrance to Lucrecia's Cave again. I paused at the entrance, one paw poised in the air, and moved slowly inside. It had been years, but the cave was clean. Years, but the air was not stale.

"Hi."

Years, but Reno was still waiting for us.

I became human for the first time in years. Swayed and fell as I was unaccustomed to walking on two legs. Reno caught me, alarmed, and laid me on the bed. I smiled up at him tiredly. "Hi yourself."

We had told him, eventually. I guess Tseng had asked him to finish a mission before fetching the Underwater materia Vincent still keeps on him. He'd gone to Mideel, which had been all but wiped out years before then while the Lifestream overflowed its banks, to retrieve some rare materia. It had rained the whole time, but he didn't think anything of it.

It rains mako in Mideel.

So Reno was still around. Still thirty or so. He'd moved in with us semi-permanently when Rude and Elena and Tseng all hit middle age, though he tended to disappear for long periods of time. But he stayed with us.

Now the two of us were the first back, and we sat back and listened to the rain. waiting for Cloud and Vincent to return home.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

AN: I'm moving across the country tomorrow, so updates might be a bit screwed up for a while. Hopefully I'll have the internet back fairly quickly; otherwise I'll be updating as much as I can before jumping in the moving truck and as soon as possible after I get settled in my new apartment, so probably it will be 2 weeks at the longest between updates.

-GuardianSaiyoko


	18. Break

Break

"How do you think you would have died?"

Cloud leaned back against the rocks and shook out his hair, spraying me and Reno with water. He was careful not to get near Vincent, though.

Cloud and I were swimming. Well, at the moment just Cloud was swimming; I'd climbed out of the lake to bask in the sun and was sitting near Reno with my eyes closed, drinking in the sunlight. Further back from the water, Vincent was resting against the wall. He's never unequipped the Underwater materia since Reno brought it back for him, but he's never gone into the water of the lake either. Hell, he's paranoid about showering, since we shower in the waterfall.

What? It works.

Reno was the first one to answer Cloud. Reno's calmed a down a lot in the last few (hundred?) years, but he's still Reno. "I kinda figured someone wouldv'e shot me a long, long time ago."

Vincent made a muffled noise that might have been a laugh. Where Reno has grown more thoughtful, Vincent has grown more bold, as if they're trying to balance each other out. "I had thought the same."

I tilted my head and watched the light sparkling off the water droplets Cloud's hands sent into the air as he treaded water. We had lived so long that little things like the tiny rainbows I could see if I moved my head just so were fascinating. "A hero's death." Reno turned to look at me. "Y'know, a hero's death. Killed in glorious battle and all that. You don't honestly think I'd ever have made it to old age under normal circumstances?" There was that muffled laugh from Vincent again. "Hey, shut up over there. You're oldest."

Cloud laughed. "So I'm the only one who thinks he'd have died peacefully in his sleep?"

"Looks like it," Reno said wryly. "The rest of us are realistic."


	19. Cure

**Cure**

I grin as the wind whistles through my hair, catching my cape and sending it flying out behind me, and give Reno a thumbs up. My cape, patterned loosely off Vincent's, a mottled green on one side and black on the other. It was great for camouflage, unlike Vinnie's bright red.

What am I doing up here? Well, we made the mistake of telling Reno about our...adventure... sledding down Mt. Nibel. This gave him a 'wicked idea' (his words, not mine) and now I'm standing at the top of one of the mountains around the lake, with a rope tied to a tree. Reno is tying off the other end at the bottom of the slope.

Yeah. You're starting to see where this is going.

I had spare fabric from my cape. It was dangling from the rope in a kind of handle. I placed my feet in the straps on the metal- where he got it, I don't know- closed my eyes, grabbed my little handhold-handle-thing, and at Reno's signal, I pushed off.

"Whoa!"

I all but flew down the mountain. The fabric was strong, but it was fraying on the rope and we'd have to find something else to use. But...The ground flying past beneath me, the wind, the exhilaration of being all that there was in the universe...it was the same as that long-ago ride down the mountain, only by myself.

I hadn't wanted to keep it at first, I thought it would detract from the original experience, but Cloud and Reno both thought it was fun, and anyway Vincent and I could fly if we really wanted to. If we really, _really _wanted to, since transforming hurts like hell. For me at least, it's worth it, but I don't know if Vincent thinks so. I know he didn't used to.

He has healed a lot. We think it's been at least two hundred years since the last AVALANCHE member died, many more since everything happened with Hojo. Vincent's told us a little bit about himself, but still not too much. Then there's some stuff I found out on my own, but that's another story, and a long one at that. There was this one conversation we had, when Cloud was swimming and Reno was cooking- unlike the rest of us, he knows how- when I think I finally got it into Vincent's thick skull that he wasn't a monster.

We were both just kinda leaning up against the cave wall, towards the back, staring at the waterfall. I was meditating, watching the water. I don't know what the hell he was doing.

"Yuffie."

It took me a moment to come out of my trance. When I did, I shifted to face him. "Yeah?"

"...Am I a monster?"

I blinked. That had kinda come out of nowhere, considering no one had brought up Hojo for a couple of decades. There hadn't even been need to transform. "No. You're not."

Red eyes glanced at me, then away. "I'm not human."

I laughed, without humor. "Depending on your definition, none of us are."

He held out his claw and stared at it. Before he could comment, I held out my own arm and let the change come over it. I grit my teeth in pain as bones shifted and reversed, scales trickling down my arm until it was Tiamat's claw. I looked at him. He looked away again, dropping his claw.

I dropped my arm as well, watching the scales recede and the bones twist back. It still hurt, but to me the pain was worth it for the ability to fly.

"You transform into animals, natural creatures. I transform into demons...I am less than human." Vincent's voice was low. I swatted him on the arm, making him look up at me in surprise.

"I would argue that would make you more human than I am," I said dryly. "Humans are unnatural creatures."

That got the barest of smiles. "You speak as if you weren't one."

"Am I?" I shrugged. "Are any of us? Not really. But that doesn't make us monsters." My arm twisted again, this time into the red-furred leg of the firecat Nanaki had named Silence. I placed my paw on his claw and smiled.

**GuardianSaiyoko:** I'm back! I'm all settled into my new apartment and I just got a cat, a lovely little black female named Onyx. She's friendly, thankfully, as she's also fully clawed. Updates should be a bit more often in the week I have before I start school; I'm attending a trade school year round and the curriculum is tough, so we'll see how the writing goes.

Thanks for wishing me luck, tenshiamanda1987, and hi Outfoxed. Later,

Sai


	20. Mug

**Mug

* * *

**

I mentioned that I'd learned some of Vincent's past. I guess I should mention how.

After the deaths of the last of AVALANCHE and the period of wandering, occasionally one or a few or all of us in the cave would take off for a while. It was during one of those times, one when I alone left and the others stayed in the cavern, that I met the Lowara.

The others thought I was checking on the Bloodlines, something we all did from time to time. We even looked after specific Bloodlines- I watched over the Highwinds, Reno the descendants of Elena and Tseng, Cloud the Wallaces, and Vincent Reeve's children's children. In all honesty, I was originally going to check on the nearest branch of Highwinds, when I came across the Gypsy camp.

I may have been gadjo, a non-gypsy, but I had also walked out of the woods in the shape of a wolf and taken that of a woman. The Lowara I had stumbled upon welcomed me. Originally I had planned to steal some food and leave, but well...it is a bad idea to steal from Gypsies. From the Romani.

And after all, I had just landed myself as an honoured guest in a tribe of wanderers who were in the habit of stealing to survive. This was my idea of heaven. They called me Bhen Kesali, the Forest Spirit's Sister, and it was after a decade or so of living with them and listening to their stories that I realised I had learned Vincent's past, quite by accident.

You have to understand, I'd lived with them for years, but I was no Gypsy. You have to be born into the Rom, or you will never be a Rom, no matter what.

Of course, they were good people, for the most part. So when, many years ago, the Ataman found a woman badly injured with a baby son lost on the riverbank, he had taken them in. The woman had died a month later, but they had raised her son. Not as a Gypsy- like I said, you have to be born a Gypsy- but something more than a slave and less than a family member. They found the boy had a talent for fighting and so trained him appropriately. When he reached the age of twenty, he was to become the bodyguard for the Lowara.

The Turks raided the camp before then. They took supplies, animals- this was bad, because the Rom depend on their animals- and, what was considered the worst blow, the boy who had been trained to fight. Kesali. Forest Spirit.

Vincent.

It had to be Vincent. The time span, the Turks, the description of the boy. He was supposed to have had green eyes and black hair, hence the name Forest Spirit, but then I always figured red wasn't Vinnie's original eye colour.

Suddenly the name my Lowara had given me was much more amusing. The Forest Spirit's Sister. If only they knew. Then again, maybe they did. The Rom are funny that way. They know things others would never dream of and accept them as easily as breathing.

I wondered if Vincent remembered them. If he knew that they mourned for him, this many generations later. Even at his young age, he had been looked upon as a protector. Not a Gypsy, and he didn't have a traditional family- but he had been raised by all the Rom, and so he had a much larger family than normal. Not a Gypsy, but they had liked him anyway, much more than they did most gadjo. He might not have known that, though. He might have thought he was just a burden. I never knew Vincent before Hojo changed him, so I don't know what his personality was like, if he had a guilt complex even then.

I stayed with the Rom a long time. Even after a left them, many years later, I checked on them periodically. I took my duty to the Rom as seriously as my duty to the Bloodlines, maybe more so. In a way, this was Vincent's Bloodline. I never told any of the others of them. I have no idea why not.

In the end, I guess the Rom got their bodyguard after all.

**GuardianSaiyoko:** You have no idea how much research went into this chapter.


	21. Morph

**Morph **

I should mention that my transformations are not like Vincent's.

It hurts when I change. A lot. A whole hell of a lot. But that's to be expected when your bones and organs start rearranging themselves in ways they were never really intended to. And I know Vincent's transformations hurt just as much, or more. But that's about where the similarities stop.

For example, I think the pain is worth it to be able to fly or to run with a pack of wolves. I think I'm more comfortable now on four feet than I am on two. Vincent, however, would prefer to stay human (relatively) most or all of the time. I don't know whether or not his demons came with names- I'm inclined to think that they did, for reasons I'll go into in a bit- but my animals did not. They have their own personalities, and it's odd to constantly feel the spirits of predators surging through my soul, but their names came later with the exception of Tiamat. She's also the only one of mine to have more conventional intelligence, which might explain why she had her own name and is what leads me to think that Chaos and the rest had names of their own.

The first one named was my firecat form, Silence. In all the years Silence lived with Nanaki, he never once spoke, and so Nanaki named him Silence. Of course, the real reason he never spoke was that I was reluctant to let Red know it was me. I've still got no idea why my firecat is male and the others aren't. Vincent's form are all male, so it would make sense for mine to all be female. But Silence isn't. Which is a good thing, really, because Red was desperate enough to find a female of his own kind that the situation could have gotten incredibly awkward.

My panther was second. She was Rage. I found this form was the one I tended to when I was angry, even if I was concentrating on another. Vincent has mentioned that this is similar to what Chaos does to him.

The very last to be named was my wolf. She is the form I spend the most time in next to my human one, my favorite, and I was my wolf for many years after the end of AVALANCHE. Black-furred, gray-eyed, gypsy savior and the sister of the forest spirit, the lost Kesali, my wolf is Night.

I had gotten very comfortable with all my forms and had a knack for transforming without even needing to be pushed to the limit with the exception of Tiamat. I was comfortable with them years and years before the fall of AVALANCHE. I had gotten comfortable during a very important period of my life.

The day I returned to Wutai.


	22. Phoenix

**Phoenix **

Honestly, I don't know what made me want to return to Wutai. Our exit the last time had been spectacular enough that we were certainly not going to be forgotten.

But...well. I guess I didn't want to be an exile forever.

So I returned, but this time I walked in the lead. Vincent strode to my left, Cloud to my right, and Reno was waiting on Da Chao's peak to help with our exit. Red XIII was with him- I fully intended to utilize all of my transformations and this was before Red ever knew who Silence was.

So we walked, Cloud and Vincent and I, unchallenged into Wutai. There were a lot of villagers that stopped to stare as we walked by, but no one recognized us with my hair long and with the clothes we were wearing.

I had borrowed some of Vinnie's clothing again, this time a bandanna. The flash of red in my hair went with the cape I wore- not the black and green one I would be attached to in years to come, but one that flashed red and gold and all the colours of the dying sun and gave the impression of flight when the winter wind caught it. Vincent was dressed in his usual red cape and black garments, Cloud in Zack's old SOLDIER uniform once again but now with a cape that matched Vincent's.

We walked right into the Pagoda in a way that should not have been possible after the way he had last left it. Well, Godo isn't much of a warlord. Otherwise, Wutai might never have become the tourist trap it was, I might never have left on my journey and met Cloud and the others, and...

And what? I might still be mortal? Might never have had my home with Vincent and Cloud and Reno? Do I regret that?

...No. I don't.

Gorky greeted us, scowling, at the entrance to the Pagoda. "You have returned."

I smiled humorlessly, doing my best to imitate one of Vincent's favorite expressions. "Like Phoenix rising anew from the ashes. Yes, I have returned."

Gorky dropped into her battle stance with a low growl. "Then you will have to fight me for entrance."

I smiled and let my cape drop. Gorky's eyes bugged as I growled in response, the growl deepening as fur sprouted and bones shifted. It was Silence that sprung at her, not Rage or Night, because I was not yet enraged enough to reach Rage and not yet sorrowful enough to reach Night.

No...I felt only a fierce joy in my return to my homeland, even if it did not want me. I leapt at Gorky with a growl, tore at her with my nails, forced her into submission. It was only when I stood over her, growling with my teeth at her throat, that I came back enough to feel the hand at my ruff and Vincent's gentle words.

"Yuffie. That is enough."

I growled one more time, pressed just hard enough to draw blood, and withdrew from Gorky as Cloud removed his hand from my fur. I sat back on my haunches, licked the blood from my paws and returned to human. Still licking off blood.

Well, I think I had frightened her sufficiently. At any rate, she did not move as we passed to the next level of the Pagoda. Vincent paused to offer to help her up, but she recoiled from his claw. I stopped, grasped his claw to pull him after me, and glared at her as we continued up the Pagoda.

Shake was next. That was one of the briefest fights of my entire ages-long life.

Who knew Shake was afraid of wolves?

By the time I got to Chekhov, it was nothing to slip into the form of Rage. The anger generated from the Pagoda guardian's treatment of Vincent alone would have been enough to invoke her (Shake had decided to comment rather ungraciously on his unusual eyes. I was going to forever treasure the look on her face as Night leapt for her with a howl.) Chekhov, however, decided to up my rage by a bit.

"So, whore. You're back, I see. And you brought your freak pets with you. Were all the foreign women as disgusted by your tastes as we are here? Were the one-armed demon and the foreign freak the only ones who would sleep with you? Were they..."

Chekhov never finished that statement. Chekhov never finished any statement ever again.

Mind, I hadn't intended to kill her, just frighten her. Then she opened her mouth.

After that, even if I _hadn't _wanted to kill her, she would still be dead because Rage wanted her dead.

I didn't even transform back after that fight, just dashed up the stairs as a panther with my brothers behind me. Blood trailed from my fangs and claws as I burst snarling into Staniv's room. Like Shake, he never had a chance. Still in the thrall of Rage's killing, well, rage, he was dead five ways before he hit the floor. I vaulted from his body and continued up the stairs, transforming back even as I slammed into Godo's room, but still flooded with anger.

Godo was facing away from me. "Who is it!" he snapped as he turned. He stopped mid-turn as he caught sight of me, eyes widening.

I licked my lips, rolling the blood around in my mouth. I swallowed loudly and smirked, letting my slightly-too-sharp teeth graze my tongue. "Let me introduce myself..."

"Yuffie?" Godo whispered, transfixed, staring at the blood on my hands and feet and face. I had replaced my phoenix cape, accenting the red blood marring my expression. Vincent and Cloud stood still as statues on either side of me.

"I'm a social disease..."

Godo shrank back.

"I've come for your wealth, and leave you on your knees." I reached into my cape and threw the contents of his safe on the floor. The bag split, gold tumbling across the hardwood surface. He had not left it guarded well; sadly, it had taken no effort to take all of Wutai's royal treasury. No wonder the ShinRa had won the war. Godo sucked at this.

Godo focused on my face, saw the sharp canines, saw me idly raise my hand and lick at the blood on my knuckles. My eyes never left his. "No time for feeling sorry, I got here on my own. I left when I was sixteen...and I never really returned..."

"Yuffie," he whispered. "Yuffie, my daughter...You can...you can come back, ask to be forgiven, I can show you mercy...You can be a citizen of Wutai again, if you only change your ways..."

Cloud started forward. Vincent stopped him with an arm thrust in front of him and a look. I laughed, long and low, and was surprised myself at how dark it sounded. "I won't ask for mercy..." I swept my arm out to the side, sending my cape flying. "I got here on my own!"

"...Yuffie..."

"What's yours is mine," my voice hissed out through my teeth, in through my teeth, "what's mine is mine too." And it was, it _was_; I was born and raised a Princess of Wutai. I was Godo's only living family, Sephiroth and maybe even Zack had killed the rest in the war. Maybe even Cloud had killed one of my siblings or cousins, but if he had I did not want to know. "If you shake my hand better count your fingers." So I was raised as a thief and a princess and a savior of Wutai; I had failed at them all but I had saved the Planet.

"Yuffie," Godo said weakly, one last time. And I thought back to my childhood, of the few happy memories it held, and maybe I could have let it be if Godo had not continued. His voice was strong when he uttered his last words and it sickened me. "Turn on these two outlanders as proof you have changed and you may return as royalty."

Now, I had said earlier that I had found my final limit in the mountains near Nibelheim while grieving for AVALANCHE. This was when I first learned it, but not when I first used it.

Confused?

Me, too.

Rage at the treatment of my brothers. Fierce joy and pride in their defense of me. Sorrow that the home I had known as a child was gone forever. Love for Cloud and Vincent and Reno and Red. I felt as if my body was no longer large enough to hold my soul, as if the emotions storming in me were stronger than a mortal body could hold. And for the first time in my life, one of the very few times it would ever occur, I gave in entirely to that feeling and let it shape my body. I roared as I grew, and grew, and grew, until I dwarfed even the Grand Dragons in the crater. A new intelligence woke within me, a personality interested in my anger and my pride and joy and love and that agreed with me about my opinion of Godo and Wutai.

_I am Tiamat_, she said, _and I am you and you are me, and we are one._

And we roared, and fire dredged from the depths of our being, and the Pagoda was set aflame as Cloud and Vincent ran to meet Reno and Red on the mountain and to ready to leave. Red had already managed, somehow, to evacuate most of the town. It had taken Vincent years to control Chaos; who knew what my first transformation would do?

We had brought dragons into the skies of Wutai once again.

It was, literally, ages before I could meld with Tiamat again, and I never did learn how I did it that first time. Tiamat has said she doesn't know either.

It was many, many years after that visit before we returned to Wutai...because for many, many years there was no Wutai to return to.

Only ashes, and the remains that the Phoenix had left behind.

**GuardianSaiyoko:** Pocky to anyone who can guess where Yuffie's little speech is from.


	23. Confu

**Confuse **

I probably had a lot of habits that annoyed Cloud and Vinnie. Not Reno; Reno thought everything was funny. One of these habits was the odd, and to me understandable, fascination I had with death. Besides the infamous _how do you think you would have died _ conversation I was liable to bring up at odd times, I liked to discuss different ways of death. I once held firmly to the belief that it was best to die of laughter for years, despite all of Reno's attempts to convince me that it wasn't possible. I still think it is.

Another was the odd attachments I formed to particular material objects. Not often but I did. I had a medicine pouch from Aeris, a little leather bag with a polished river stone inside of it, that I wore on and off for years. I had a hand-woven bracelet Cloud bought me in the days of AVALANCHE that I wore all the time; I tied it on and wore it until it literally rotted off my wrist. Then I was upset beyond reason until Cloud left for a few weeks and came back with a new one. I was quite unreasonably attached to that bracelet; possibly because he had bought one for Aeris and one for Tifa as well. Tifa had, somehow and to my amazement, managed to lose hers; Aeris wasn't wearing hers in the City of the Ancients, so I assume she lost it as well. I was the only one who still wore mine.

I also had a habit of bringing home stray animals. Wolf cubs, coyote pups, baby chocobos, baby birds, and the one that, surprisingly, caused the most uproar, cats.

You wouldn't think cats would be a problem. Hell, I sure didn't think so or I wouldn't have started feeding the strays, or let them start coming in the cave during bad weather. That wasn't the problem. The problem really wasn't anything I or any of the guys could have predicted.

The problem was the catnip.

Now you'd think that after the first few hundred years of living together , Vincent would have mentioned some things, like the fact that it's possible to take on attributes of one's alternate forms, but no. No, he was still touchy about the occasional battlerage and bloodlust. Hello, Vinnie. Ninja, remember? Battlerage and bloodlust are _ not new._ No, he couldn't take five minutes to warn me that maybe, _maybe_, catnip was a Bad Idea.

Panthers are cats.

So, technically, are Nanaki's kind.

So, yeah, I have some nice gaps in my memory while we had a cat. Unfortunately for me Reno has filled these gaps in with videotapes. Admittedly funny video tapes, but you know what? It would be _so_ much funnier if it _weren't me._

We're going to see Nanaki and his daughters soon.

I'm pretty sure Reno's smuggling catnip along.

**GuardianSaiyoko**: The story behind the bracelets is that Lev once brought three bracelets with three different color schemes back from Mexico for me and my two friends. He let each of us pick one and we discovered that we each picked the color scheme that would fit only the girl who had picked it and none of the others. Each of the others immediately lost their bracelet, while I've been wearing mine for four years (it does not come off.) This means that not only did Lev predict the exact sizes, but also who would pick each color. In this story, and to some extent in Paschendale, I tend to think of Cloud as Lev. (Tifa is actually one of those two girls. Yeah, we've had a soap-opera-y relationship thing going.)

Maybe you find that interesting, maybe not. There's a few more chapters of this story, and then a quasi-sequel, AU unless you realize the connection, called Dark Embrace. However, I may continue to post chapter on this occasionally even _after_ the Epilogue is up. I'd kind of like some feedback on that idea, though.

sayonara,

Saiyoko


	24. Stormsky

I leaned back against a steeple of the ShinRa mansion and sighed. "It's been a long time, you guys."

Reno snorted. "No kidding." His voice was soft as he stared at the red blaze all along the horizon.

"Well," Cloud said wryly, "we've certainly had a good run." Muffled laughter. Aeris smiled and curled her tail against him. She had become a gorgeous cat. Her parents had returned to the Lifestream many years ago, but her sister still guarded the Canyon and she still stayed with Cloud.

"Ragnarok..." Vincent murmured, and we lapsed into silence again.

The world was ending.

One of the doomsday predictions had finally come true. Not a demigod, not a Sephiroth, not anything we could stop.

We had really lived until the end of the world.

Now our family gathered on the roof of the ShinRa mansion to watch the final sunset. When the sun dropped below the horizon, our time was over at last. Whether or not the world would be reborn was impossible to predict. And if it was reborn, would we be reborn with it, or would we live on?

We were in Nibelheim because it was Cloud's childhood home. Vincent and I had no homes, Reno's Midgar had lain in ruins for centuries uncounted, and Aeris would follow Cloud anywhere. Her idol had not been me for long- she had matured and grown devoted to Cloud above all else, to where she left the protection of the Canyon to her sister.

_I'll come back to you! Don't worry, the Lifestream always continues!_

Aeris was my hope for the way this day would end.

I sighed as the last rays of light crept over the horizon and slowly vanished. "Well. See you in the next lifetime, Aeris, Reno, Cloud...Kesali."

Vincent whipped around and stared at me. I smiled and after a moment he seemed to let it go and turned back to nightfall. It was Vincent that spoke the last words for us all.

"On into this brave new world..."

Reno snorted. "This 'brave new world' better have booze and women."

Well, Reno's words don't really count.


	25. Final Attack: Phoenix

**Final Attack: Phoenix**

The wings unfurled from his back and he leapt, from the waterfall, followed the river to the sea. Flew towards the sun as fast and hard as he could, Chaos' laughter a background echo almost impossible to hear, and alighted at the edge of the moving settlement that seemed to wait for him. He walked from the trees as human and the family rose at once. _You've come home._

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He ran the desert, firecat's tail dancing beside him as her long lope stretched to meet his. Their strides rang across the ground in unison and he laughed into the wind. The sunset blazed ahead of him. _You'll always be there for me._

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He laughed and swung the children up into his arms, spun them around. They had his hair and her eyes, his first family gone so many years before. His nightstick lay forgotten in a corner. _I guess I got my chance to be redeemed. From murderer to babysitter._

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I was flying, I was the air and sea and sky and the saltspray from the waves I skimmed. I shot up above the clouds, down through a valley of red sunlight. My spirit seemed to burst forth in the roar I loosed, the roar echoed from within me as Tiamat thundered, _We are ONE!_

_---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

And the sky blazed up brighter than before. And the tomb of AVALANCHE shook, deep in the stone, and cracked and began to fall. The Lifestream fountained up from the crack in the floor and filled the cavern.

And the world was over.

**GuardianSaiyoko:** This is, technically, the epilogue and the end of the story. However: One, there is a sequel, called Dark Embrace, the first chapter of which was posted simultaneously with this one. Two: Hurricane is a special kind of story and may actually have chapters added occassionally after the epilogue. Actually, there's a very good chance of that.

Thanks, everyone. -Saiyoko


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